2011 ATA Bow Report

Ok, here we go. I shot a bunch of bows and made notes as I went along. These are just my opinions so take them for what you will.

Bowtech Invasion.
Draw: I thought the draw was smoother than the destroyer but very similar
Handshock: Very Little but not like a Guardian
Vibration: I picked up hint of vibration and feel it was coming from the FLX Guard. We put BowJax on these for Destroyers and it makes big difference
Noise: Very quiet even the bow did not have any silencers on the string
balance: it leans back if you just hold it lightly. Will be perfect one a stabilizer is installed.
Overall: I can't want to get one so I can tweak on it.

Diamond Dead Eye
Draw: felt more aggressive than the Invasion but I expected that considering the speed and it's a single cam.
Handshock: Good but not great, slight bottom kick
Vibration: had more than the invasion but not bad
Noise: Very Good
Balance: slight backward bias
Overall: Great performance at a lower price point

Diamond Fugitive
Draw: Smoother than the Assassin because it's a single cam
Handshock: Good, not much here
Vibration: Very little. Better than the dead eye, not as good as the Assassin
Noise: Quiet bow
Overall: Incredible performance at these price points

Diamond Outlaw
Same as Fugitive but with higher brace height. Incredible for $499 package bow. This is the new $500 standard everyone will be competing against.

StrykeZone 380 crossbow
Very quiet on the shot
Very good speed
Great price point for this performance
Best Trigger I've ever shot on a crossbow.

Hoyt Carbon ElementHoyt cheated a bit as all their demo bows had stabilizers that don't come with the bows, so I don't know how accurate this is by they are my observations
Draw: Very nice and smooth but expected considering the lower IBO speed compared to others
Handshock: very little
Vibration: Very little.
Noise: Quiet bow
Overall: Nice bow but expensive. Very light mass weight, lacking in the speed department

Hoyt AlphaElite
Draw: Stiffer than the element but not bad
Handshock: Quite a bit more than the element but it's more of a target bow
Vibration: Again target bow it has some vibration but a lot better than the contender style bows
Noise: Target bow, who cares
Overall: Very nice for a target rig, if I shot a hoyt, it would be a consideration for 3D for sure. Did have some cam lean top and bottom at full draw

Elites Overview
I didn't take individual notes here but they are very nice bows all of them.
Draws and vibration as expected from elite. They have various cams for different preferences. If you like smooth they have it, if you want fast, they have that too. The tour looks great for an indoor or 3D bow. You will need a heavier stab for the tour as it had some bottom kick that I don't remember noticing on the XLR.
Overall: Good Stuff here for sure.

Winchester
Very similar to a lot of other offerings from newbreed, athens, etc. The demo bow had some really bad cable wear but they said it was a serving issue. Also noticed the cables rubbed the mounting block on the roller system. The bows shot pretty good overall. Considering they are very new to archery, they have potential.

PSE Dominator Hybrid
Draw: Hybrid reminded me a of cam.5 and had a valley similar to to the triumph. It didn't drop in very hard at all and seemed easy to creep without it wanting to tear your arm off. Not sure this is a good thing or not. It was easy to come off the wall.
Vib: Amazing how little vibration this bow had.
Overall: I may have to get one of these but in the single cam version

Single Cam
They didn't have the Dominator in the single cam for me to shoot but had the moneymaker with the single cam. I liked this feel better. Valley was more noticeable and the wall seemed harder.

PSE Supra
I shot this bow quite a few times when the rep was in.
Draw: similar to the dominator single cam but more stiffer and more aggressive. Smooth on the shot too.
I took the reps demo bow up to the paper tuning rack at our shop and shot multiple bullet holes and the bow wasn't setup for me at all.
This is going to be a winner for PSE and is a great alternative to those not wanting to spend the money for a dominator.

EVO
I didn't shoot this at the trade show. Shot it many times when the reap was at our shop. This is an excellent offering from PSE. I probably do a full review once my shipment arrives at the shop.

Darton
Darton has really stepped up their game in recent years. After many years of designing cams for everyone else, they are producing some top notch bows. The 28, 38 and 45 bows are excellent. They also had no cam lean at full draw. Draw force was similar to most binaries. Very little vibration on the shot. The target bow was very smooth on the draw as you would expect from a target bow.

G5 Prime Centroid
I was very interested in shooting this bow. Hand shock and vibration was minimal as expected by most of today's top bows. Did notice there was no cam lean at full draw but some other oddities showed up. One was the cables through the slide were pretty chewed up considering it was only a couple days of shooting. Also the bottom cable rubbed the cam when at full draw. The flexable guard allowed the cable to some in really close and looked like they may be seen in the sight window. They didn't have peep or sights on the bows so I can't say for sure. Very interesting concept though.

Thanks for the info. Since you're one of the few that's probably shot all of them, can you compare the Specialist vs Supra vs Tour vs Triumph please?

hmmm... ok.

Specialist vs Supra. I expect the specialist to be faster. On the Draw, I would say similar. The Supra has way less vibration.

Tour vs Triumph. I haven't shot my triumph without stabilizers for a long time. So lets see. More jump in the Tour than the Triumph and totally different cams. Triumph heavier mass weight than the tour. Tour had a definite bottom kick to it on the shot. Without shooting them side by side, I would say, vibration would be about a tie.

What we don't know is how each of these aims. I would give the tuning nod to the Specialist based on how easy the destroyers tune.

I have a specialist coming, I have a supra coming and I currently shoot the triumph so time will tell soon I hope which bow wins out.

Thanks Chris! I know I have shot the Carbon Element & the Matrix Plus. IMO they are top notch and Hoyt should sell a ton of them as the price did drop this year.

As far as the IBO Hoyts are very conservative compared to the inflated ratings others throw around. I have tweaked Hoyts side by side with others that have an IBO 10fps higher only to see the Hoyt out perform the competetion

G5 Prime Centroid
I was very interested in shooting this bow. Hand shock and vibration was minimal as expected by most of today's top bows. Did notice there was no cam lean at full draw but some other oddities showed up. One was the cables through the slide were pretty chewed up considering it was only a couple days of shooting. Also the bottom cable rubbed the cam when at full draw. The flexable guard allowed the cable to some in really close and looked like they may be seen in the sight window. They didn't have peep or sights on the bows so I can't say for sure. Very interesting concept though.

My Grandpa ordered this bow from the ATA show. He's been shooting it for a couple months now. The string started freying where it connects to the metal loops at each end, and the bottom cam started leaning really bad. Top cam seemed like it was leaning but after putting a lazer on it to check it, it seemed fine. He just purchased a new Mathews EZ7. Not impressed with it after I shot it either.

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